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Scum Bag Gear Stealer!

Not my land its our land but I left some gear down on the Big SU for moose camp, days later it was gone Please god let the SB get what they deserve, or please come back for more ..... Im waiting for you!!!

Man that sucks. Alaskas just not what it use to be.I have heard of this happening quite a bit over the last few years. I have yet for it to happen to me. I pitty the fool that does, if I catch him . I did leave some gear at the landing on the little su some years back. It was raining (all day) so I had eveything in two big garbage bags. Drove home about 30 min one way. Got back and they were still sitting where my buddy sat them down on one of the big rocks. Had they not looked like two bags of garbage I'm sure someone would of walked off with them.I do have to add I forgot some other gear (this year) and got back to find someone had picked it up. As they said holding on to it till I came back. I'll take them for their word and believe that there are more good people out there than bad.
I do believe in karma.

Sorry Louie
I remember when I came here in 83 and at the Big Su bridge was a pull out and campground, rough but people had spots to pull in and camp. No one was there but there was this one space with a small tent and it had all the guys gear and a sign that said.Please do not take this, it's all I have and if you take it, I will have nothing and you will be a thief, I may not catch you, but if I do, I will shoot you and if I don't catch you, someday it will come back to haunt you. Thank you to those honest enough not to rip me off.

It was obvious by the sign, written on cardboard that it had been there at least 2 months. I was shocked, having just come up from Kalifornia, but pleased as I had choose a place to raise my family where a Man was as trusting as that, plus no one had touched it. Even though it was August and you could tell the tent was full of stuff, the annual migration of the mini winnis had been through but the stuff was all there, to the best of my knowledge.

Alaska is changing and in many ways not for the good, more people means we all need to look at our actions and those of others. Pass down to our children and friends that respect for a Man is paramount, each person who lives here should make it better not worse, not be a thief or worse.

If we catch people stealing or other crimes against people. Then we need to stop it, the old way would have been a harsh punishment, as it should be. We are to soft on criminals. We don't need more Prisons, there are plenty. Put these thieves to work on projects that need fixing around the state. Don't work, time gets added to your sentence. Live in tent camps, well provisioned and built to meet the climate, they do in AZ in 120 degrees. The men who built the the Al Can also lived in tents and they was a large portion of men from the south, men who at first were thought to be inferior to the white soldiers. Well they proved that theory wrong by doing some of the toughest work and ingenious ideas to beat the way through the wilderness.

Teach a thief what it takes to work for the money to buy what was stole. Then when they have paid for their crime, in time from life. They will have a skill to work at and understand that stealing a mans hard earned goods is wrong. Restitution of the goods stole should also be mandatory. I am not any political type, just make the crime fit the time, do not make tax payers pay for a cell, teach a trade through hard work, pay the injured back and out will come a man who may just have his life changed. Locking people up does no good, it's just sending them to Criminal University.

Louie, I am sorry, we have criminals all around us, in government from the very top, down to the people around us. It's time for the people to take our State back. If your going to be a criminal, then they should be punished and the punishment so bad that you one would never think of stealing your cache and if they do, when caught, that punishment is seen through all the way, no time off, no bargains, you know your going to be losing what is most important to all of us, our freedom. That is how we stop crimes against people.

We are lucky that there are still some very fine people in Alaska, and they usually pitch in to help. Maybe someone will find the punk who stole your gear, post what it was and how to ID it. I would also file a report with troopers. Give any serial numbers of anything, that way if they try to pawn it they will be caught. I suggest everyone get an etcher to mark your equipment with a few numbers of your SS number or part of your DL.
Maybe this experience will help others make some changes in the system and in the future, this will be a rare thing.

I know the pain Louie, I lost everything I had in the Millers Reach Fire in 95 around Big Lake, not the same as theft. Maybe some people who have some gear there not using anymore can make Louie a fair deal on what he needs.
All the best
Geoff.

Aarrrgghhhh!

Louie,
Sorry to hear about your unfortunate situation. Between shrimp pots being stolen in the sound and gear ripped off in the woods, it's getting dissapointing and harder to trust people anymore.
I had a moose camp for 12 years in unit 20A. We kept a small cache there with lanters, oil, skillet, moose call, camping gear, etc... The first year it opened up to registration cow tags for moose we found a group of hunters had beat us to our spot and they went through our gear. At first they denied touching anything, till I pointed out the latern they were using had my name on it, the skillet they were using was mine, the moose call never appeared, and so on. It was a very uncomfortable feeling to be lied to, especially since I caught them red handed using my gear after they denied touching the cache when I asked them initially.
Anywho, sorry to hear some ****** stole your stuff. If it's something unique or identifiable, post a description and maybe one of us will spot the thief using it.
BK

.......I had a moose camp for 12 years in unit 20A. We kept a small cache there with lanters, oil, skillet, moose call, camping gear, etc... The first year it opened up to registration cow tags for moose we found a group of hunters had beat us to our spot and they went through our gear. At first they denied touching anything, till I pointed out the latern they were using had my name on it, the skillet they were using was mine, the moose call never appeared, and so on. It was a very uncomfortable feeling to be lied to, especially since I caught them red handed using my gear after they denied touching the cache when I asked them initially.....

I had a similar experience. We caught a group on the Dulbi River with our equipment in hand, and they still had the shamelessness to declare that they didn't know what we were talking about. They continued their ignorance when I walked through the woods to our half buried overpack which was freshly opened.

We just collected up our stuff and left. We buried it at a better camp in a better hunting location.

I don't mind if somebody uses my cached stuff if they take care of it and put it away like they found it when done. Unfortunately, that is proving to be less and less the case.

I have also seen where people cache gear to come back and use it at during Fishing. In converstation with some folks from out of state I learned that he and several of his friends do it ever year, and most year their cache's are found. However the difference here is they are hiding their gear near campgrounds and off he road system. I my mind some would call this type of cache littering. It is one thing to hide your hunting camp supplies but buring a cooler with stoves and other camp items in the hopes you will make it up here next year to fish is another. I think the situations above are different but the thought of leaving stuff near in the woods campgrounds does not strike me as right.

Thiefs

I Had A 10' Duck Boat Stolen On The Palmer Hayflats 2 Years Ago With A Bag Of Decoys... It Was A Devistating Loss. I Learned My Lesson To Leave Things Out. If Anyone Hears Of A Little Flatbottom That Someone "found" Let Me Know... Sorry For Your Loss

Cache

We Had A Cache Of Items In Some 55 Gal Drums About 30 Or 40 Miles Out In The Booneys. It Contained Horse Grain And Few Mre's Ect. My Name Was On A Game Bag And It Ended Up That The Refuge Found My Stash In A Fly Over Marked It With Gps And Went Out To Investigate. They Looked Me Up And Fined Me And I Had To Go Out And Get It With Snowmachines In The Winter Time.

I have found many "abandoned camps". They were obviuosly not cached for later use and usually scattered by critters. I still could not bring myself take anything. It becomes an trash pile and an eyesore.

I have even found caches that were scattered by animals as well. You really have to do a good job if you hope to find it in good shape at some later time.

I lived in SouthEast for many years found cabins with a note on the door that basically says:

I am leaving my cabin unlocked. This is my cabin. I spent lots of time and money building it for myself and my family. Please do not take advantage if me. Please camp elsewhere.However, if this is an emergency, you will find a supply of wood inside as well as dry clothes and a small cache of canned goods. Please contact me when you return to the city. Also, please replace anything you used.Thank youBob the Builder 907-283-xxxx

The kindling was already place in the stove, ready for a match. Very imoportant in a life or death situation.

I have seen many locked cabins with the locks broken off and the windows pried open, for no apparent reason. Just mean people I suppose.

I also stash stuff at a hunt camp and have had people go thru it and take some. I have to carry most of the same type gear back in there with me each year incase of humans or grizz taking it or ruining it. But the main reason I ever leave any is to make room for meat on the way out. So if it's gone, it's gone. So what. Take the stuff, I'm not going to sit there and dwell on thieves when I'm on a hunt.

Gear caches

I don't want to side-track this thread, but I wanted to make a couple of comments about gear caches.

I think it's a real shame that some folks bust into these caches when they find them. For anything outside of a survival situation, this is simply theft, and the guys that do it should be taken to task.

On the other hand, FishOn makes a good point. Sometimes people leave a gear cache "in case" they come back. Maybe they're too lazy to pack their stuff out, or perhaps there are other reasons. But some of them never come back, and the bears tear into the cache and spread it all over the woods. Who's gonna clean that up? The State of Alaska requires guides who leave gear caches in the field to purchase a storage permit in advance, and the permit has some pretty strict guidelines as to the size of the container and such. In short, they don't just let you bury a few Action Packers in the woods. They even want to know exactly where the cache is located, and they follow up if it ends up being a mess after the bears get it.

Having said that, I know that the guy who started this thread appeared to be stowing some gear afield in advance of moose season. I recognize that that is different from leaving it stored out there between seasons for a whole year.

I've heard similar opinions. At one point I called the Troopers to check on the legality of equipment caches. I was told that it was perfectly legal, and if I wanted to make it official I could get a land use permit.

He pointed out that people store fuel in drums out there all the time, and even leave the empty drums to rust away (which you would think would be an environmental issue).

Fred Rungee's House ransacked

On this thread I would like to add that Fred Rungee's house on Carlson lake was ransacked. They took his 44' sheep mount, his guns, chainsaws, generators and everything else they could.

Fred is an Alaskan institution. Why would anybody want to rob and 88 year old sourdough who lives 4 miles off of the highway near Slana.
Fred was a classically trained pianist and hauled a baby grand over the pass on a sled when he was 65 and I guess that they vandalized that as well.

I have to mothball up our house in Chitina with Plywood, then tin, then more plywood to keep the thieves from stealing the wiring.

The old Alaska is gone.

Heck the Park Service took all of the survival goods out of the Nugget Creek Cabin. It used to have a log book that went back to 1899. Now its gone and nobody knows where it is.

An upper-Yukon River tale

Many years ago, a couple of bad guys from the big city decided to do a jetboat trip from Circle, up the Yukon into Canada, and up the Fortymile River to the bridge on the Taylor Hwy. They drove from Fbks up to Circle and launched their boat, and had a friend drive their pickup back with a schedule to meet them on the Taylor Hwy.

It was a time when the river people were still living in the country, but many were at various fish camps and some were off to town buying supplies. Anyway, whether planned or not, the two guys in the jetboat decided to stop in at every vacant cabin and steal whatever they thought was of value, mostly chainsaws, generators, guns, small outboards, and tools. They managed to get away with this without being caught, but one bushrat who returned from a trip to town to find his chainsaw and genny and other belongings gone was not going to just sit idly by. He motored back upstream from the mouth of the Kandik toward Eagle, stopping in at neighbors camps and cabins asking if they too had been ripped off. They had. Someone somewhere along the way mentioned they'd seen a jetboat with a couple of guys dressed in camo clothing stop in at various places, and that this boat had continued up past Eagle.

I won't mention the bushrat's name who was out to recover his and everyone elses belongings (not me), but this guy had a reputation for being a hard-drinking and hard-fighting man back in his city days, and not one to be messed with. Gentle as a lamb and kind if he knew and liked you, not someone you really wanted to meet if it was otherwise. He continued motoring up into Canada and found that the river rats living along the river in Canada had also been ripped off, and that someone had seen a heavily loaded jetboat head up the mouth of the Fortymile. Our hero pursued, bumming gas off his riverine neighbors for the cause. It was the latter half of July and it was light all night long. About 40 long miles up the Fortymile River, after busting a prop and having to put on a spare, only ten miles from the bridge on the Taylor at about 3am he saw a jetboat moored along a gravel bar, a tent set up, no people visible. He motored close to the boat to see if he could see inside and sure enough it was completely littered with saws, gennys, tools etc. He kept motoring by so as not to wake or stir the thieves, went a mile farther and cut the motor and drifted back down to the jetboat and quietly and furtively tied alongside and loaded all the stolen goods in his boat. By that time it was nearing 6am. He tied his boat off on shore and untied the jetboat and pushed it out into the current. He took his riot shotgun, went to the tent, and yelled for the occupants to "get the hell out of there" pronto, and to come out unarmed.

The two men pleaded for mercy after seeing that their boat was no longer there and watching our pissed-off samaritan's finger twitch on the trigger of that big twelve gauge. The men explained that they were stationed at Ft Wainwright in Fbks and that an army buddy was going to meet them at the bridge and that this friend and others more combat oriented would "come looking" for them if they didn't show up. I suppose this was the final straw for our unduly deputized bushrat, and at this point he ordered the men to strip naked, which they did, and he tossed their clothes and boots into the tent and lit a match to the nylon. The men exclaimed that they had their pistols in there...and the bushrat recovered the pistols first and then lit the tent on fire. He held the naked men at bay while the tent burned, untied his now-loaded boat and told them they'd better hoof it to the bridge before the mosquitoes ate them alive. He considered not physically harming the men the greatest mercy he could ever give, for he sincerely wanted to do much more. In truth, the long journey in pursuit of the thieves had somewhat calmed his initial outrage and desire for physical revenge.

So it was that our bushrat traveled back down the river system like Santa Claus asking every river person to come look and see what might be theirs from the bounty in his jon boat. He recovered everything, including weapons, and got it all back to the right people. It was at a mid-winter trapper gathering that I first heard his story, and I didn't doubt it one bit. The only thing that surprised me was that he didn't actually hurt anyone. No word was ever heard again of the thieves...though stories did float around among some placer miners dredging the Forytmile of two naked men stumbling up the river near the bridge. The jetboat was found by someone else and then brought up to the bridge on the Taylor, where it was then found out it was stolen from a Fairbanks residence, trailer and all...these same guys just backed up to the trailer late one evening and drove off with it. One assumes the thieves made it back to civilization, but really couldn't call the authorities and tell them they'd been robbed at gunpoint.

Well...one of those bush stories that sound better around a woodstove or campfire and a bottle of aged whiskey. I will say that I personally don't think that violence is the right or proper way to deal with thieves...but I understand how people get riled over having their stuff stolen. I've always loved the frontier justice aspect of the above story though...just one of many from this neck of the woods. And lest everyone bash the military on this...their are bad apples among us all no matter what group or line of work. That's the story as I heard it though and no sense sugar coating it. We don't have locks on our cabin door and if/when we do leave for a spell we always pin a note on the door similar to what bustedknee posted. We are off the Yukon quite a ways and can still do this, but cabins along the main river now are often locked, and stuff is regularly stolen. It is sad indeed.

I've only been here a year but it seems like "Alaska" dies a little more each day. I wish I had been here 30 years ago. It is sad that there is such a great difference between what I thought Alaska was and what it is. That being said, it is still the greatest place I have ever lived. Sorry to hear of your loss.

I've only been here a year but it seems like "Alaska" dies a little more each day. I wish I had been here 30 years ago. It is sad that there is such a great difference between what I thought Alaska was and what it is. That being said, it is still the greatest place I have ever lived. Sorry to hear of your loss.

Yes it was nice 30 years ago. But all the same stuff went on, just like 60 years ago and 90 years ago. Only difference is a few more people living here each year and a corresponding increase in the number of bozos. Anybody who sez different just has a bad memory

Yes it was nice 30 years ago. But all the same stuff went on, just like 60 years ago and 90 years ago. Only difference is a few more people living here each year and a corresponding increase in the number of bozos. Anybody who sez different just has a bad memory

When you get old enough to remember 30, 60, and 90 years ago, you're memory is likely to be rather spotty...........